


Locked in a Cage

by Callaeidae3



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Cages, Gen, Heavy Angst, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Missions Gone Wrong, Protective Hunk (Voltron), Tranquilizers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 13:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16703179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callaeidae3/pseuds/Callaeidae3
Summary: BTHB: Locked in a Cage.Keith's captured on a solo Blade mission and locked in a cage ready for shipping to the Empire.





	Locked in a Cage

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by @justheretobreakthings! :) You can find the bingo card I'm writing this from on my Tumblr @callaeidae3!

He hears the whistle before it punches him.

Keith tumbles to the dirt, a tranquilising dart – _arrow –_ sticking out of his neck. The aliens who fired it are on him in an instant. One of them has a crossbow. They land their weight on him, pinning him down and yanking his arms behind his back before he can grab the shaft. There’s vine binding his wrists together, his ankles, his knees…

He keeps struggling until he can’t, but it’s useless: there’s too many of them, he has no idea where his knife is and the drug is acting far too fast.

His visions blurs. Obviously it shows, because the aliens chose then to take their weight off him and pull him up into an awkward sitting position. His arms are pinned to his sides as move vine is wrapped around him, tighter and tighter around his chest.

“..nnnh?”

Keith has no idea what he was intending to say. The drug knocks him out before he can think about too much.

 

* * *

 

 

Waking is slow and foggy. His head hurts and his mouth feels dry. Keith tries to force his eyes open but every part of him refuses to move…

Most of that is because he physically can’t move at all. The bindings are painfully tight. His Blade armour prevents the vine from digging into his chest but the same can’t be said for his arms, every inhale bringing a fresh wave of pain.

_…how long?_

It’s impossible to get any measure of time. When Keith finally manages to open his eyes, there’s nothing but darkness. He’s not been blindfolded – he’s actually seeing that darkness. There’s a faint strip of light to his right, but he’s not sure if he’s hallucinating that or not. Raising his head to get a better look –

Metal bars. Two sets. His forehead hits one wall, the back of his head the other – a corner. He tries to sit up but his wrists have been lashed to the bars behind him. Keith’s heart skips a beat.

_No…_

He tries to stretch out his bound legs but his feet just hit more bars. When he instinctively pulls them away, his knees hit a fourth wall of bars.  

They’ve put him in a cage.

 _Deep breaths. Deep breaths._ Too late, he’s already hyperventilating.

Through the haze of being drugged, Keith finds himself choking on air. It’s too stuffy in this…room or wherever he is. It’s dark and he’s tied up and he’s dehydrated and he’s….

Water…he needs water.

“Hey, can s-someone please…? Please!”

The darkness traps his voice. So this is a room he’s in. It sounds like some kind of wooden shed. Keith tries not to let his imagination run wild.

“I need water! C-can I jus’ have some water? Tha-that’s it, that’s all I’m asking …”

It doesn’t even feel like he’s the one saying those words. Keith Kogane doesn’t sound that drunk and scared. He shouldn’t sound this desperate.

“Hello! Someone, please – ”

Footsteps. Outside. Keith’s breath hitches.

The door is unlocked and swung open. In the light that floods in, Keith catches a glimpse of his knife hanging in a clear plastic bag on the outside of the cage. Beyond that, rows and rows of boxes line all four walls of what looks to be a poorly ventilated storage shed.

All the boxes have labels on them. Destinations. People to be delivered to. The cage has one too, attached to the bag his knife is in.

Post. He’s going to be shipped off somewhere.

Before he can try to read the writing on the label, the silhouette standing in the doorway turns on the actual light of the room and Keith’s blinded.

He screws his eyes shut, heart racing. There’s a clinging of metal, a harsh jolt through the cage and then the top of it is being lifted. Why Keith dares let himself feel hope, he doesn’t know. Hands come down on his face and a knotted rag is forced between his lips. He yelps and jerks away, bangs his head on the side of the cage in the process. The alien still succeeds in tying the gag firmly in place.

With a grumble, the alien slams the lid on the cage back down, locks it and leaves. The room is swallowed in darkness again.

Keith works his jaw, trying to displace the gag. The rag tastes like it’s been sitting in a cupboard for years and his mouth is already so parched, and now this…

An involuntary sob escapes him. This isn’t how this mission was supposed to end up. Gathering intel, that’s all it was meant to be. Not this. Definitely not this. There won’t be any rescue team sent out when Kolivan realises he won’t be returning to base. His communicator’s broken, so he can’t leave an SOS to any rebel coalition forces. Voltron are too busy doing other universe defending stuff to be hunting down an MIA Blade of Marmora agent.

And if this is a storage shed of things to be posted… when’s the next ship coming to collect them? A few hours? A day? A week?

He’ll die before then. He’ll die of thirst or panic or –

“..handing out aid supplies to all the neighbouring planets.”

Keith whimpers. He’s got to be hallucinating.

“Okay, cool. Here, I’ll carry this to the storage for you.”

Two lots of footsteps, one pair – the one affiliated with the warm tone of English – distinctly heavier than the other. They stop, the door is unlocked and the alien from before enters with someone familiar.

Keith shouts Hunk’s name into the gag.

The glowing teal of paladin armour is drowned out by the light turning on again, but Keith’s voice is not. The supplies in the box collide with a grunt from the alien. A shadow falls over the cage.

“What the heck, man?” Hunk yells, tearing off the lock with his bare hands and pocketing Keith’s Marmora knife.

Keith squints up at him. He’s relieved to see that it’s not him who Hunk’s angry at.

“So you’re posting people now, huh? Handing over to the Empire the very people who are trying to save your skin?”

The alien protests, hastily trying to push Hunk away from the cage, gesturing wildly.

Hunk’s expression morphs into dangerous fury. “How the heck do you expect to win an intergalactic war with a strategy like that?”

The alien freezes. His eyes flick between the angry Yellow paladin and the Blade bound up in the cage and takes a slow step backwards.

First and foremost, Hunk fumbles with the knot in the rag and pulls it out of Keith’s mouth. Keith inhales sharply, coughs. He lets out a strangled whine that he’s come to learn is, in fact, Galran, and concentrates hard on keeping his sobs internalised.

“Man, Keith,” Hunk murmurs. “How on earth did you end up like this?”

The cage is sitting on a shelf about halfway up the wall, so Hunk is able to reach around to the vine binding Keith’s wrists to the bars of the cage with ease. After a few seconds of frowning, Hunk has it loose.

“There. Now I’m going to have to lift you out of there before I can get the rest of you free, yeah?”

Hunk reaches in and moves Keith away from the back of the cage. He slips a hand beneath his shoulder and carefully pulls him up. Keith’s fingers catch on the bars, but then he’s leaned forward and Hunk’s working on the bindings on his wrists and around his arms.

It _hurts_ when the pressure comes off them. Keith swallows hard. His bottom lip quivers. Hunk holds him close and then, with a hand under Keith’s knees, lifts him out of the cage.

The alien post guy stands by, unhappy. Hunk keeps him in his periphery but otherwise pays him no mind. He sets Keith down on the ground so he can untie his legs. Keith keeps his eyes fixed on the yellow ‘V’ on Hunk’s paladin armour, on the pain throbbing in his upper arms, so he doesn’t have to see the guy’s glare.

“Voltron isn’t going to forget this that easily,” Hunk says as he unravels the last knot. “That doesn’t mean we won’t bring aid if it’s necessary and it’s reasonable for us to do so with whatever else we’ve got going on, but this… you did this to one of our own, to our family. We don’t take that kind of thing lightly.”

Apparently the alien hadn’t realised Keith, although clearly recognisable as human with his Blade mask down, was associated with Voltron. His eyes widen, gleam even, but Hunk’s quick to shut him down with a hard look.

“If you dare touch us on our way out,” Hunk says, “I will not hesitate to use force. Think about that before you regret it.”

Keith has no idea what visual state he’s in, but it’s obviously bad enough that he doesn’t have to tell Hunk he’s in no condition to walk. Hunk helps him climb onto his back into a piggyback so that Hunk has his hands free, just in case there’s a situation that calls for the use of a bayard.

No one hinders them. Judging by the expressions of everyone they pass inside the building, Hunk’s making his thoughts clear. When they emerge into the daylight (of which day, Keith’s not sure), Keith has to hide his face against Hunk’s armour in order to shield his eyes. He trusts Hunk’s situational awareness here and he trusts his ability to protect him.

It’s shameful, being captured on a Blade mission less than a couple of weeks since he left Voltron, even more shameful to have to be rescued by one of the paladins so soon after he left them. But Hunk doesn’t shame him for it, doesn’t make any kind of big deal about it. He just carries him all the way back to Yellow and makes sure that no one dares try to Keith from him.

He finds out during the flight back to the Castle that Hunk was actually scared that entire walk back to his Lion. Scared not for himself, but for Keith. He rambles over the comms, hands Keith more water pouches than he needs and constantly checks over his shoulder to check that Keith’s okay in his seat on the floor of the Yellow Lion’s cockpit.

They do care, the others, but all Keith can think about is the silence they’d given him when he showed up late after the last Blade mission that went awry. He’s not sure how he feels about going home. Better than he would’ve being stuck in that cramped cage for any longer, of course.

But…

Voltron used to be a place he called home. Why then does it not feel like he’s ‘going home’?

 

 


End file.
